It had been mid-summer and her dress had been low cut. Because of the produce bag, the tiny strap had slipped off her other shoulder and the dress hung even lower than it should, exposing even more of her chest than she intended.
Kate glanced at it, then at Garrett. “What the hell?”
“It’s a candid shot. No make-up. You weren’t expecting rope lines and fans that day, Kate.”
He could see she still didn’t understand, so he spared her. “There are no scars. Even after twenty years, there should be something and you can almost count the hairs on your brows in that photograph, it’s so clear. So where are the scars on your chest from a double lung transplant?”
She slapped the stack of documents back against his chest. “That’s it? That’s what you’re holding up a multi-million dollar movie for? Three sheets and a lack of fucking scars?”
The two men standing waiting for her, fifteen feet away, jerked their heads around, startled. So did a dozen other people, nearby.
Garrett grabbed the print-outs as she let them go. “You’re dodging the question.”
“I’m not dodging the fucking question!” she spat back. “I’m not going to fucking answer it at all, because it’s a moronic fucking waste of time!” She stalked back toward her crew, then turned back toward him, her body stiff with fury. She grabbed the hem of her tee-shirt and started dragging it up. “You wanna see the scars now, Garrett? Huh? How about I rip this fucking thing off now and satisfy your morbid fucking curiosity and the whole fucking set at the same time?”
He held up his hand. It didn’t surprise him to see it trembled. “Don’t.”
“Get out of my sight, Garrett.” She turned and walked away.
Garrett did the same.
Filming went wrong from the first take that night and nothing seemed to go right. Kate’s temper didn’t improve, although she didn’t take it out on anyone else.
Just after midnight, Roman came over to Garrett’s chair and dropped into a crouch beside it, watching the twenty-third take go sour with a twist to his mouth.
Garrett winced.
“So,” Roman started.
“She sent you with a message.”
Roman nodded. “She wants you off the set.”
“I didn’t think she was superstitious.”
“She isn’t. Not exactly. But you’re making her mad every time she looks at you. That’s not helping her concentrate and it’s making everyone else jumpy. What the fuck did you say to her, Garrett?”
“Her business, Adrian.”
Roman nodded. “Fair enough. Will you go back?”
Garrett sighed. “She’s probably right.”
* * * * *
Kate didn’t need Adrian’s whispered “He’s gone,” to know that Garrett had left the set. But that didn’t ease the tightness in her chest and gut one iota. The rest of the night’s filming was an unmitigated disaster. She knew there would be very little in the can that she could use when she uncorked it later.
The knowledge didn’t help her mood as they were driven back to the base camp. The sun was just lifting over the horizon and despite the solid six hours of sleep Adrian had rigged for her the previous day, she was baked.
No one in the van talked to her. They all knew it had been a lousy night of shooting, too.
At the camp, as she unfolded from her seat and stretched, Patrick Sauvage, still in his Murad armour and robes, strode up to her. She spared him a smile. He had worked like a dog all night. He was a true professional – uncomplaining, and trying hard to give her what she wanted, even though she suspected that what she had been asking for had been contradictory and impossible to deliver.
He stopped in front of her and wiped at his face with a black towel, removing a bit more of the makeup. He glanced around casually, taking in observers and eavesdroppers. “A bit of a tough night,” he said.
“A bit,” she agreed.
“They happen.”
“They do.”
He glanced around again, this time with just his eyes. He leaned forward just a fraction of an inch. “He’s not an enemy, Kate. Loosen your grip. You’re squeezing too hard.”
Then he smiled cheerfully at her. “Elizabeth Bradley arrives tomorrow. I’ve been looking forward to that for two weeks. I can’t thank you enough for casting her as the lead. I’ve never had the pleasure of working with her and there’s that big wedding night scene.” He winked and headed for the costume tent, his armour clinking softly in the chill dawn air.
Kate turned her gaze toward Garrett’s big luxury trailer. It could be seen from almost every corner of the base camp, it was that big and that distinctive.
Her anger, which had been simmering all night, surged up almost as strong and fierce as when Garrett had first provoked it. She started walking toward the trailer and soon she was striding, her hands curled into fists and her jaw clenched.
She banged on the trailer door. “Garrett!”
“It’s open!” His voice was muffled and from further inside.
Kate hesitated, taken aback by the invitation. She had half expected Garrett to tell her to fuck off, or never darken his doorstep, or something equally as dramatic. She was on his turf, now. Didn’t the Scots have all that clannish territory thing going on?
She opened the door. It was, indeed, unlocked. She stepped up into one of the most lavish trailers she had ever been inside…and she had seen many trailers in her time.
Movement sounded from what had to be a bedroom, connected to the main room she was in. Then Garrett’s voice. “I heard the vans returning. How did filming go after I left?”
He came out into the room, his head down and Kate caught her breath. His hair was damp and he was towelling it dry. He’d clearly just stepped out of the shower, for he wore nothing but a towel around his hips.
A very small towel.
“Did Kate calm down after I left?” he asked, lifting his head.
His eyes widened.
“No, she didn’t,” Kate told him. “The entire night’s filming was probably a very expensive waste of fucking time.”
His jaw rippled. He slowly lowered the towel in his hand to the butter-coloured sofa. “I’m sorry.”
“Really?” She fought to stay angry, but…goddamn it, he was virtually naked. And her gaze kept trying to slide down the length of his body. His height had never been a mystery, but all the suits and shirts had emphasized only than he was lean. They’d never hinted at the muscles stored under there. He actually had a six pack and that delicious ridge of pelvic muscle that arrowed down under the towel…
She dragged her gaze back up to his face. “Can you get dressed?”
It was the wrong thing to say. It told him far too much about her state of mind. She should have said nothing and suffered in silence. But it was too late now. It hung there between them, that she needed him dressed in order to deal with him, because him naked was too much for her to handle.
Kate felt her cheeks heat. She was blushing.
She hadn’t blushed since high school, maybe junior high school.
Great. And the more uncomfortable she got about blushing, the more heated her cheeks grew.
Garrett’s expression hadn’t changed, but she could feel the shift in his attention. From neutral to…wary.
“I can change if ye want me to. Wait just a bit.” He walked back into the bedroom and re-emerged barely thirty seconds later wearing jeans…and nothing else. Worse, the fly of the jeans were at half-mast.
Kate felt her pulse zoom through the ceiling. “You call that better?” she demanded and her voice was hoarse.
Garrett padded toward her and her breath caught. He stopped in front of her and reached behind her, making her lean backwards. “I thought you might find it preferable to me undoing them in front of you before I tuck my shirt in. My shirt is behind ye there.” His voice was low.
“Your accent has changed,” she whispered.
“Aye, I tend to get a bit clumsy with my phrasing when
I’m relaxed…or aroused.”
He was still reaching behind her, still leaning over her. His eyes were incredibly blue this close up.
“Stop looking at me like that, Kate,” he whispered. “Or I’ll not be responsible for what happens next.”
“The documents you showed me—”
“I burned them.”
Her heart leapt. “Calum…”
His arm came around her back and pulled her in against him and now he wasn’t just leaning over her. He was holding her against him. And he was aroused. She could feel his cock, throbbing inside his jeans, up against her hip.
She moaned.
Garrett was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling with it. “You want me. Tell me, Kate. Let me hear it.”
His hand was stroking the back of her thigh, making her melt, making her want more.
Making her want him more than ever. But saying the words was difficult. It was an admission of weakness.
He brought his head close to hers, his lips by her ear. “Close your eyes.”
She closed them.
“You used to watch me on TV, didn’t you, Kate? Late night shows, political debates, business profiles. You know my voice. You heard it long before you met me.”
She shivered. True.
His hand slid up her thigh and slipped over the belt of her jeans.
“Then there are all the chats you and I had on Twitter, when you thought I was just DoveAngel. Ah…you used to tell me everything. I know your soul, Kate Lindenstream.”
Her heart lurched.
His thumb slipped under her tee-shirt to stroke the ultra-sensitive skin by her hipbone and her pelvis thrust in reaction. Garrett’s hand slipped higher, pushing the tee-shirt with it.
Kate opened her eyes. “I want you,” she breathed. “Now.”
The thumping on the door made them both jump. “Garrett!” It was a feminine voice.
Annette, Kate realized. His assistant, the female he had been expecting all along.
Garrett drew in a deep breath, his gaze locked on her. Then he stood upright, bringing her to her feet. He opened the door, and when he turned back to Kate, she saw his jeans were properly fastened.
Annette climbed up into the trailer. “Hi Kate,” she said, as if finding Kate in Garrett’s trailer was an every-day occurrence, not the one-off miracle it really was. She dumped a small pile of files and a laptop computer on the desk and stretched. “There’s some stuff to go over, but I can catch up later,” she told Garrett. “I’m going to get dinner, then go to bed.”
“That sounds like a fine idea,” Kate said. “I’ll walk over to the catering tent with you.”
She carefully didn’t look at Garrett as she left. She didn’t think she would be able to leave if she did.
* * * * *
Adrian arrived back at her trailer around six a.m. and Kate was waiting for him.
As soon as he closed the door, she pushed him up against the wall and kissed him, giving him no time to speak. As she kissed him, she pushed his shirt up his chest, gathering it up.
Adrian broke the kiss. “And hello to you, too,” he said.
“Shut up and fuck me,” she growled.
He grinned. “Hard day at the office, dear?” He shrugged off the shirt, his big muscles – so unlike Garrett’s lean, long ones—bunching into thick, round caps and mounds.
Kate leapt at him again. She kissed him, driving her tongue into him, trying to anchor herself here in the moment. With Adrian.
She stripped him of the rest of his clothes as she kissed him. His hands moved ahead of hers, helping and guiding, until he was naked against her. His cock was like the rest of him; nicely proportioned, veined and with a flaring head. She stroked it and heard him draw in his breath.
His hands settled around her waist and he broke the kiss. “Come here,” he said, his voice altered by his arousal, made thicker and rougher. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. She was treated to a view of his taut backside as he threaded his way past her desk, into the bedroom and laid her on the bed. It wasn’t a soft landing, although it didn’t hurt.
“So, you want a fucking, do you?” he growled. His cock was throbbing, making her ache to have him just at the sight of it.
“Yes,” she confessed.
He prowled around the bed to the side table, the early morning sun making tiger stripes on his body through the blinds.
“The blinds, Adrian.”
“Silence,” he commanded, digging in the drawer. “Or I’ll gag you.”
“What the fuck—”
His hand came over her mouth, cutting her off. “Shut. Up. Get it?” His eyes were inches from hers. “Or I’ll ensure you stay shut up while I get to do whatever I want with you.” He smiled. “And I can be very inventive.”
Abruptly she found herself almost hyperventilating, as her mind attempted to encompass ideas she could barely conceive – dozens of them that cascaded in a rush.
His smile grew. “I don’t want to gag you because I like to hear the sounds you make. Especially your screams.” He dropped his hand to her tee-shirt and curled his fingers over the ribbed neckline. “You just don’t get to direct how anything goes for the next little while.” He gave a quick yank and the tee-shirt tore from neckline to hem, exposing her breasts, for she wore no bra. She caught her breath.
“You need to take a break from giving orders for a while,” Adrian said, removing the remains of her tee-shirt. “You’re burning out.”
Is that what went wrong tonight? Kate wondered. Or was the problem more fundamental?
Her attention was jerked back to the present by the touch of cold steel about her wrist and the rachetting of metal teeth. Adrian hauled on the other side of the handcuffs, pulling her arm up toward the abbreviated bedpost.
Kate shuddered in anticipation, her nipples hardening to tight, sensitive nubs.
Adrian slipped the other end of the cuff around the bedpost and fastened it. He pulled out a second cuff and spread her out on the bed, securing her to the other post.
Then, just as he had the first time he fucked her, he grabbed the waistband of her jeans in both hands and stripped them from her, belt and all, in one sweeping movement from hip to toe, taking her panties with them.
Kate sucked in a jagged breath, trying to ride out her excitement, to make it last. She had a feeling that Adrian wouldn’t let her do that, though. He was going to determine when and how she came.
And how often.
Just the idea that it wasn’t up to her made her heart race.
Adrian picked up her knees and spread her thighs wide, looking down at her exposed vulva and anus. She could feel her pussy was drenched with moisture.
He dropped a hand to his own cock and absently stroked it, studying her.
She thought she might have a heart attack, watching his big hand slide up and down his own cock, as she lay open and waiting for him. But she bit her lip, fighting to stay silent. She knew that Adrian would make her pay for speaking and now she was cuffed, she couldn’t act on the impulse to reach for him herself.
Dammit, she wanted to eat him. Fuck him. Do anything. Something, other than lie here and wait for him to decide what he was going to do to her. She couldn’t even complain about him taking his time.
She was tingling with the possibilities of what he might do next.
And what else did he have in that drawer? She hadn’t known about the handcuffs. He could have anything stashed in there…
She glanced at the drawer, estimating the size of it and how much it could hold.
Adrian grinned. “Yes, there’s more where the cuffs came from.” His voice was rich with amusement and arousal. “The drawer was empty. You clearly weren’t using it. I decided it needed a purpose.” He moved around to the side table again, pulled out the drawer and reached in. From Kate’s position on the bed, she couldn’t see into it.
He climbed onto the bed, between her spread thighs and placed something on the bed where sh
e couldn’t see it. Then he leaned over her. His cock, still rampantly erect, brushed her cleft, pressing up against her clit. “I like you this way,” he murmured. He smiled. “I like you most ways, but this way has appeal.” He ran his tongue over her lips. “I like the idea of you helpless to stop me.”
She nearly spoke and just barely caught herself.
His eyes sparkled. “Very good,” he murmured and kissed her properly. “Let me guess. You were about to point out that in fact, you’re physically incapable of stopping me in any situation, if I put my mind to it. Hmm?”
She nodded.
“I’ve never taken an unwilling woman.” His lips trailed over her chin and down her throat, along her jaw to hover over her pulse. “You’re willing enough now. You just can’t stop me from doing exactly what I want. And that is to make you come so hard, you pass out.”
She laughed.
Adrian lifted his head to look at her. “I see you’ve only moved in genteel circles, Kathrine Lindenstream. Let’s change that.”
His teeth and lips fastened on her nipple, sucking hard and drawing it out, elongating it. They were already hard and sensitive, so the sudden stimulus was shocking. Kate clutched at the metal bands around her wrists, rising from the mattress, her body responding like she really had been shocked by a bolt of electricity. His teeth were scraping along the sides of her nipple, jolting her with the most delicious sensations that arrowed straight to her clit and made it throb and her pussy to pulse and weep.
His finger and thumb pinched the distended nipple, holding it taut, as he ran his tongue over the tip. That was another type of sweet friction that made her moan.
Then he replaced his finger and thumb with a clamp and tightened it.
Kate recovered her breath. There was no chain hanging from the clamp. It was a simple clip.
Then he swiped his tongue over the tip of her nipple once more and Kate sucked in her breath, groaning, as pleasure exploded through her. The clip made her nipple incredibly sensitive. She had experienced clamps and chains, but no one had used just a clip on her before. Not like this.
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